(Tearing Down) Building Up
by KitKatt0430
Summary: Cisco and Hartley aren't soulmates. But considering some of the awful things that get excused because 'soulmates', Cisco figures their relationship is healthier for it. Hartmon Fest 2019: – Feb 24th – soulmates; – Feb 19th – Cisco character fic


Summary: Cisco and Hartley aren't soulmates. But considering some of the awful things that get excused because 'soulmates', Cisco figures their relationship is healthier for it.

Hartmon Fest 2019:  
– Feb 24th – soulmates  
– Feb 19th – Cisco character fic

_**(Tearing Down) Building Up**_

Cisco's parents are soulmates. Cisco's grandparents - both sets - were soulmates too. Then there was Dante, who had the name of his soulmate appear on the back of his right shoulder-blade at the age of sixteen, two years shy of the upper bound for a soulmate name to appear. That made for three unbroken generations of soulmates on both sides of the family... for Dante, anyway.

Unlike Dante, Cisco's eighteenth birthday came and went and still no soulmate name appeared on his skin - remembering the humiliating strip down in front of his father and Dante still gives Cisco a nauseated feeling in his gut. They'd inspected nearly every inch of his body for a name and Cisco had wrapped himself up in extra layers for days afterwards, unable to shake the feeling of being judged wanting and unlovable.

Only about one in twenty people had soulmate writing on their skin. From there, only about thirty percent of people ever found their soulmate. Though the number of successfully completed soulmate matches had risen - and continued to rise - due to the creation of soulmate matching apps, which doubled as dating apps for the mate-less majority. But that rarity didn't stop people from marketing the hell out of the concept of soulmates.

Soulmate themed rom coms were the most popular out of the romance genre. Soulmate matching apps promised to find the mate-less someone who'd love them so much they'd want to write their beloved's name on their skin themselves. There was Soulmate's Day in March, which a lot of US businesses treated as a holiday for their employees. Soulmates got preferential treatment at hospitals, restaurants, bars... bring your soulmate, get twenty, thirty, forty percent off. Children at school were taught that the best possible thing that could ever happen to them was to have a soulmate.

But when Cisco got over the trauma of being strip searched on his freaking birthday, he was mostly just relieved not to have one.

Dante met his soulmate at the age of sixteen. Her name was Angela McCrimmon and her parents were... not pleased that their daughter had a Puerto Rican boy as her soulmate. They were polite enough to the Ramon family's faces, but called them pretty much every racist name under the sun when they thought no one could hear. Angela, however, was all apologies for her family and Cisco's parents ate it up.

Of course, Angela also slapped Dante a lot. But it was fine, she was just expressive. No soulmate would truly hurt their other half.

Then there were the bruises that Dante sometimes sported after a visit with his soulmate. The broken wrist from falling down the stairs. Clumsy, Dante said. I'm so in love I just get clumsy around her. I'll grow out of it.

Cisco was well aware of what was going on. But no one would listen because 'soulmates'. And Dante would just hiss at Cisco to shut up. You don't know what you're fucking talking about, hermano. Though, in retrospect, trying to push Dante to admit he was being abused was absolutely the wrong track to take. But all fourteen-year-old Cisco had known was his brother was being hurt and no one was doing a damn thing about it.

Eventually Angela was caught physically harming Dante. She was sent away to get the help she needed and completely disappeared from their lives for almost five years. Just shy of Cisco's nineteenth birthday, she showed up again and reinserted herself into Dante's life.

That was the beginning of an easily recognizable cycle of abuse. She'd gaslight Dante and cheat on him, then be overcome with remorse when she was finally caught. Sometimes she'd blame her mental illness and claim she couldn't help it, that she couldn't control herself and shouldn't be blamed. Sometimes she'd claim the exact opposite. That she wasn't really sick and didn't need the medication she was taking and that was what was causing her bad behavior... and that she couldn't help it, couldn't control herself, shouldn't be blamed. Either way, she wouldn't take responsibility for her actions. And, one way or the other, Angela would wind up back in therapy for a while and become further contrite and promise to be better to Dante. But her eyes would stray and the cheating and gaslighting would resume and... Dante would be hurt again and again and again.

They did separate sometimes, but it's never permanent. The first time it happened, Cisco had been so hopeful. But Dante went back to her. He always went back. Because she was his soulmate and she needed him.

Soulmates, it turns out, were just like everyone else. Some had healthy relationships. Others did not. And being soulmates - being in love - was used to excuse every possible awful thing under the sun.

So, no, Cisco did not want a soulmate. What he wanted was for society to recognize the obsession with soulmates and romance was very unhealthy.

* * *

"Oh, uh, hi," Cisco smiles politely, a touch nervous, "I'm looking for Hartley Rathaway. Do you know where I can find him?"

"You just did." The other man - Hartley Rathaway, apparently - had hair that was either light brown or a particularly dark 'dirty' blond. Cisco could never quite figure out the difference between the two. Hartley also had on a pair of tortoise-shell glasses, which framed a pair of very lovely hazel eyes.

Cisco had to mentally kick himself so as not to stare because Hartley was... very handsome.

"I'm Cisco Ramon." He held out his right hand and Hartley shook it congenially enough.

"Right, that interview Harrison pawned off on me." Hartley sighed and then grabbed a badge off his desk, clipping it to his hip. "Shouldn't you have an escort?"

"My escort pointed me down the hall and then went to the break room for coffee and flirting with some blonde woman who wouldn't give him the time of day."

Hartley hummed thoughtfully. "Did your escort introduce himself?"

"No, but I think he called the woman he was harassing Felicity, so she can probably tell you who it was."

"Well, he's gonna be fired come end of day, one way or another," Hartley sighed. "Right, well, let's grab a conference room. I can go on the warpath later."

Cisco snorted in amusement and followed Hartley out and back down the hallway to a room with several circular tables arranged in an x pattern surrounded by walls that appeared to be ceiling to floor white boards.

"Nifty, right? That one's actually got a smart board hidden in it;" Hartley gestured to one of the walls that, if Cisco looked carefully, had a thin rectangular outline in the center. Presumably the smart board in off mode. Handing Cisco a couple of markers, Hartley said, "I've got a bunch of questions for you, so pick a wall and be prepared for me to mock your handwriting as you solve equations and answer my questions. And, fair warning, I get called Heartless Rathaway a lot because I'm kind of an asshole. So if you think I'm being a jerk, I am, but its not personal and I will apologize if you call me out on something particularly egregious. I have a shitty brain to mouth filter, so..."

"My handwriting is pretty legible, actually. It's why I'm not a physician," Cisco replied, grinning when Hartley laughed.

"Oh, you might be fun after all."

* * *

Patricia Llewellyn and Brian Caraway are some of the most popular movie stars in Hollywood when Cisco's in college. They're in nearly every movie that comes out the summer between Cisco's Freshman and Sophomore years. Tabloids can't get enough of them and Cisco can't seem to go anywhere without someone sighing over how romantic those two soulmates are.

Cisco hates all the coverage they're getting and just doesn't go to the theater at all. His friends think he's bitter because he hasn't resigned himself to not having a soulmate yet. Or, as one of Cisco's acquaintances put it, those of us without names just have to find our soulmate the hard way, through trial and error. Cisco can't even begin to explain why that idea fills him with total revulsion.

But come Fall there's a scandal that rocks Hollywood. Patricia Llewellyn is dead and her soulmate is going away to prison for involuntary manslaughter. A reduced prison sentence of course, in light of his great loss. Never mind that there's evidence of abuse. Mostly healed spiral fractures in one of her arms. Friends and family who admitted he treated her roughly when he was drunk. That he was the one who killed her. No, his loss is too great.

No one ever did a damn thing. It makes Cisco sick to listen to and read about - it hits way too close to home. He ends up having to just tune it all out as best he can.

* * *

"Thanks for coming along," Hartley said, idly twirling his coke can. "I hate dealing with Merlyn International's reps on my own. At least Malcolm Merlyn himself didn't show up." Hartley shuddered and Cisco wondered what the story was there.

Cisco shrugged and offered Hartley a wry smile. "Well, you promised beer afterwards and thus far made good on your promises." He clinked his nearly empty glass against Hartley's soda can. "Though I'm pretty tired, so I'll probably turn in after this." They were at the hotel bar in a hotel in Starling and if Cisco were being honest, he half hoped that Hartley would offer to walk him upstairs and for them to have spectacular sex in Cisco's hotel room.

Considering how brilliant Hartley was at everything else, Cisco couldn't really imagine the sex as anything other than spectacular. And maybe it'd be a wonderful one night stand or the start of friends with benefits or maybe even dating. Not a mistake, though. Cisco couldn't imagine sex with Hartley being a mistake any more than he could imagine it as anything other than spectacular.

He just... wasn't confident enough to actually make a play for that spectacular sex himself. Yet, anyway. So for now it was just an idle fantasy.

"Our flight back isn't until late afternoon," Hartley wheedled. "Stay up and talk with me a while longer?"

"It's kind of loud down here," Cisco pointed out. It was getting louder too; Hartley'd probably start having problems hearing Cisco over the din soon anyway.

"Then... we could go back to my room? Or yours. Whichever." Hartley was actually blushing.

"Yours is closer to the elevators, we might as well go there."

Later, Cisco thinks the conversation was every bit as enjoyable as the sex. They'd both been to a lot of fan conventions and had a lot of ridiculous stories to swap. And while Cisco wasn't sure who kissed who first, he remembers how careful Hartley was to be sure of his consent every step of the way, how amazing Hartley's deft fingers felt wrapped around them both. Cisco doesn't mean to stay the night, though. But he hadn't been kidding about being tired and Hartley's fingers trailing up and down Cisco's spine in lazy spirals lulls him to sleep far too easily. Not that Hartley's likely far behind him.

When Cisco wakes up, though, Hartley's already half dressed and offering to go get them both breakfast once he's got his pants on.

"You can use my shower, if you want. Or if you'd rather get some clean clothes first, I could meet you at your room?"

"Breakfast would be great. I'll take you up on the offer of a shower, though. My clothes are fine for now; I can change when I go grab my suitcase before checkout."

* * *

Cisco's first girlfriend is in college. It would have been in high school, but Dante told Melinda Tores that Cisco wanted to be a priest and she wouldn't give Cisco the time of day afterwards.

But in college there's Kendra. They're really happy together and, much like Cisco, Kendra's eighteenth birthday passed with no name on her skin. They're together almost seven months when Cisco starts to notice something new coming into focus on her right hip.

A name. Carter Hall. Turns out Kendra is one of those rare 'late bloomers' whose soulmate name shows up later in life. Of course, later in life for her is nineteen, but still.

Cisco tries not to be bitter that she breaks up with him almost immediately and then transfers halfway across the country to be at the same university as Carter. Turns out once she put in the guy's name in a soulmate matching app he popped up almost immediately. He flew out to meet her and their marks reacted - turning blood red in each other's presence.

She just... up and left everyone she knew and cared for behind for a guy she'd met once. And maybe it would turn out fine for them. But... Cisco didn't like the way Carter treated Kendra. Like she was more possession than person.

Not like there was anything Cisco could do about it now, though.

* * *

Hartley is always careful to be sure they have sex with as low level lighting as possible. And he puts a shirt and boxers on before the lights go back on.

Cisco doesn't notice the pattern at first because he's enjoying things too much, but... it becomes apparent rather quickly that Hartley's got something on his torso he's hiding.

It's either a soulmark or scars. (Maybe an embarrassing tattoo but Cisco doubts that one pretty heavily.) The former worries Cisco. The thing with Kendra dropping him like a hot potato still stings after all these years and he doesn't want to get left behind by another partner. Especially not when he's pretty sure he could fall in love with Hartley.

But one morning, Cisco wakes up before Hartley and sees the mark. It's a smudge, not a name, smeared across the left side of Hartley's ribs.

When someone's soulmate dies, the name blurs until it becomes unreadable.

Swallowing nervously, Cisco lays back and tries to figure this out. Does he say something or not?

Once he realizes he's overthinking things, Cisco sits back up and drops a kiss on Hartley's cheek. "Come on, Hart, time to get up."

Hartley startles awake and immediately, self-consciously, covers up the mark with his arm and then throws an insultingly terrified look at Cisco.

Cisco reminds himself that that reaction isn't personal and that he did just have a bit of a mini-freak out himself. Hartley's fears were the result of how society treats people with dead soulmates. Like they're broken, defective, never going to be whole again. Well, Hartley is the most alive person Cisco knows. Vibrant and fun and whole all on his own.

So Cisco shrugs. "Yes, I saw. No, I'm not going to ask. If you want to tell me, you'll do that when you're ready. As far as I'm concerned, this doesn't change things between us. Not unless you want it to." He takes Hartley's hands and flips them over, pressing a kiss against each palm that has Hartley sucking in a shaky breath. "Now. I want breakfast. What about you?"

"Y-yeah." Hartley nods jerkily, still freaked out. But he slowly calms down as they go through the normal morning ablutions before heading into the kitchen. It's Cisco's kitchen, so Cisco's the one who cooks, making some eggs and bacon on the stove. Hartley settles at the little cafe table Cisco has off to the side and watches Cisco cook, though from the expression on his face Cisco's pretty sure he's less interested in watching Cisco's ass than usual and more lost in thought.

"Voila, breakfast is served. I managed not to burn it this time too."

Hartley smiled and laughed despite himself. Then, after a few bites of food, he said, "the last guy I dated... when he saw my mark he broke up with me. Said he didn't feel comfortable competing with the dead."

"That guy was a moron."

"Yeah... I guess he was."

* * *

After Kendra, Cisco dates a guy called Mike. That particular relationship is quite short and ends badly. But then he meets Cynthia.

He was going to marry that woman. He'd loved her so much. But sometimes... sometimes things didn't quite feel right. When they met, she was newbie FBI agent and spent most of her time at the Central City field office. But then she gets a promotion to a unit that tracks down fugitives across state lines and suddenly she's just never home. And when she is, she's on call. She's doing important work and Cisco's proud of her but... he wishes she'd put him first sometimes. And the something that didn't feel right started to get worse.

They're both crying when they break up. But they both see it coming and know it'll turn into a train wreck if they don't get out now. Maybe this way they might manage to be friends again, somewhere down the line.

Cisco's the one who moves out of their apartment. He tries to stay in touch with Cynthia but the unanswered phone calls are more common than the answered ones and eventually he admits that maybe they waited too long to break up to salvage a friendship after all. He stops calling and she's never been the one to call first, so...

He thinks maybe he mourns that loss of friendship more than he does the loss of their romance.

* * *

"His name was Ash," Hartley says out of nowhere one day. "My soulmate. His name was Ash. Well... Ashley Welcott. His name showed up when I was seventeen and I... I was pretty horrified actually. I knew at that point that I was gay. So gay. And the name written across my ribs was, as far as I knew, a girl's name. Sure, I knew it used to be a popular boy's name, but it switched genders pretty firmly, so finding a guy with that name? Didn't really seem likely. But my parents caught sight of it just days before my eighteenth birthday and... they were ecstatic of course. They immediately input the name into a matching app and it spat out his details. And then they rechecked, like, three or four times because the only Ashley Welcott in the system was an eighteen year old guy. But our marks turned green when we met and my parents - my conservative Catholic parents - had to pretend to be happy about it.

"They're raging homophobes, though, so they were pretty shitty at faking being okay with everything." Hartley snorted in amusement. "The fact that I didn't turn straight after... after Ash died, well... they never forgave me for it. But I didn't need them by then, so..."

"How did he die?" Cisco asked, threading his fingers through Hartley's in what he hoped would be taken as a show of support.

Hartley squeezed Cisco's hand gently, a grateful expression flickering across his face as he looked at their joined hands. "Two weeks after we met, Ash committed suicide." Hartley's eyes shut and he let out a shaky breath. "He... he sent me this text saying 'I'm sorry. I would have been a terrible soulmate for you anyway.' and then... I called immediately but his phone went straight to voicemail. I called his parents next, but they didn't know where he was. They had to call his friends because I didn't know any of them yet. By the... by the time I found out where Ash was... he, uh... he was already dead.

"At the funeral, a lot of people treated me like being his soulmate meant surely I was grieving more than everyone else. It was so uncomfortable. I barely even knew him. I didn't know he had depression or that he'd gone off his anti-depressants due to peer pressure or... or any of the shit he'd been going through. I didn't feel like I belonged there at all. But at least that was better than the way some of his friends - probably some of the same assholes who convinced him to stop taking his medication - treated me. Like it was my fault. That as his soulmate I should have just known something was wrong and fixed it like magic. That's how it works in the movies, right?

"And then that very same night as the funeral, my parents take me aside and start talking about the right amount of time to wait for propriety's sake before I start dating whichever young lady they deemed acceptable for carrying on the Rathaway family legacy. When I started to argue with them, they told me that the only person I would ever be capable of loving was dead. So I might as well do what they said because what did a person's gender matter to half a person anyway?"

"What the fuck?" Cisco feels this white hot blistering rage and just... "Just... fuck your parents. Oh my god."

"Cisco. My hand." Hartley looks slightly amused as Cisco quickly lets go, blushing over how tight his grip had gone.

"Sorry," he apologizes meekly.

"No harm done," Hartley replies, kissing him on the cheek. "By the end of the following week I wasn't living with them anymore. I had an apartment and a trust fund from one of my grandparents that my parents couldn't touch and I basically told them to fuck off every chance I got. Eventually they got the message and stopped trying to contact me and... I haven't heard from them in years. I don't know if they ever officially disowned me or not, but I don't care enough to find out."

Hartley leaned against Cisco's shoulder for a moment, then straightened back up as he said, quietly, "I never loved him. I didn't get a chance to know him well enough for something like that. And I was scared for a long time that my parents were right. That with my soulmate dead I would never have another chance to fall in love. And I've been afraid to talk about it because... I've been afraid of being judged for not falling instantly in love with Ash. For not being constantly plagued by his loss. Like maybe there's something wrong with me for feeling like I'm still whole when he's not here. But I'm not afraid of any of that when I'm with you."

Cisco wasn't sure what to say and this was very much not the time to be saying the wrong thing. So... Cisco kissed Hartley and tried to convey the depth of his feelings that way. It seemed to work well enough, considering the way Hartley smiled afterwards.

* * *

Caitlin and Ronnie are two of Cisco's coworkers at STAR Labs. Soulmates with the sort of relationship that seems like its straight out of a Hallmark movie.

They're really nice people and Cisco considers them friends, but... they don't seem to realize just how condescending they can be sometimes. Cisco's still uncomfortable over how his relationship with Cynthia fell apart and he's not really looking for a romance at the moment, but their reaction to hearing he's single is an immediate offer to set him up on dates. And when he tells them he isn't interested in dating right now, they get these really confused expressions.

He's pretty sure they tried to very softly set him up with a few of their single friends anyway and it really pissed him off.

When he starts dating Hartley, Cisco puts off telling Caitlin and Ronnie. But then they try that soft touch approach to match making again and Cisco goes off on them for not respecting his personal decisions. He tells them he's dating someone now, but he'd been hesitant to tell them precisely because they were so cavalier about ignoring his choices that he was sure they'd act smug and take credit they didn't deserve and never once realize how harmful their patronizing behavior was.

And then he didn't speak to them outside of work for a few weeks. Honestly, Cisco had been more than a little afraid that he'd burned bridges without meaning to; despite their more annoying qualities - seriously, they didn't need to be making out at work all the time - Cisco had genuinely liked being their friend.

It was a relief when they, hesitantly, asked him to hang out with them again. Cisco did and they apologized and promised to try to be better friends. They weren't perfect after that. They were still pretty oblivious to their soulmate privileges. But they were genuinely working on improving. So Cisco called it a win and started bringing Hartley along sometimes, amused to see the looks of shock on Caitlin and Ronnie's faces the first time Hartley showed up with him and they realized just who Cisco was dating.

* * *

Cisco eventually tells Hartley about some of his past dating experiences. Even Hartley doesn't understand why Kendra would drop everything to go away with some guy she barely knows, which is weirdly validating even after all this time.

"In retrospect, you must have been pretty worried about what I was trying to hide," Hartley says, reflexively touching the side of his chest where his smudged soulmark resides.

"Yeah, I was. Though I had other guesses about what was going on with you. I mean, it could have been that you were self conscious about your body for other reasons. Scars maybe. Or a really embarrassing tattoo. However, I'm pretty sure you'd have lasered an embarrassing tattoo off as soon as you were sober enough to regret the decision." Cisco grinned, enjoying the way Hartley laughed at that. "If I hadn't seen it that morning, I'd have probably brought up the subject eventually. But I was hoping you'd let me see without having to prod you too much."

Hartley swirled his glass of wine thoughtfully, then said, "I had this personal rule about drinking. Don't do it with someone I find attractive, particularly not someone I wanted to sleep with. Because then I might sleep with him and he'd see my soulmark and... I was afraid of a repeat of Chip. I half broke that rule with you, though. Didn't drink with you when you had that beer at the bar, but I still... I couldn't resist taking a chance with you. I'd wanted you since pretty much day one and I'd hoped you felt the same way."

"I'm really glad you did break that rule." Cisco paused and then, says, "my apartment lease is coming up for renewal soon and it got me thinking... would you be interested in moving in together? We spend a lot of time in each other's places now and... it seemed like something maybe we could start considering?"

"I... I haven't actually lived with anyone since I moved out of my parent's house," Hartley admits, a touch nervous. "I'm not sure I'd make a good housemate."

"Well, when I stay the night here or you stay the night at my place, you do a pretty good job of it." Cisco kisses his cheek. "It's okay if you're not ready yet, but I wanted to put the idea out there regardless."

Hartley smiles, relieved. "I need to think about it some, maybe discuss hypotheticals?"

"We could also do a sort of trial where we spend one week living together in your place and one week living together at mine?" Cisco grinned impishly. "Make a whole scientific venture out of it?"

"I like the way you think." Hartley kissed Cisco lightly on the lips and Cisco chased that kiss with something involving a bit more teeth that had Hartley letting out a startled moan. "Can we table this discussion for later? I think I'd like to take you to bed now."

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

Notes:

This story was basically the culmination of a lot of things. Awkward timing, for starters. Feb. 17-23 was Aromantic Awareness Week and, for those who don't know, aromantics (like myself) are people who don't experience romantic attraction. So while I do enjoy soulmate fics (the world building is always so much fun) and obviously aren't particularly romance-repulsed, it's really odd to go from Aro Awareness week straight into a soulmate fic prompt because of how inherently amatanormative soulmate AUs are. (Yes, there can be 'platonic' soulmates, but that doesn't actually address the problem.)

But also that the show seems to be setting up Cisco to leave the team permanently, which matches up with the rumors that Carlos Valdes is leaving the show after this season. While I'll be sad to see Cisco leave, if that's really what's coming, I wouldn't want an actor to stay in a job they want to leave just because I like their character. However... it's kind of upsetting that the writers have come up with this amatanormative/heteronormative reasoning for Cisco's eventual exit. It makes Cisco look like he's still so messed up by his break up with Cynthia that he's trying to rid himself of the thing that brought them together - his powers - and also over-reacting to how Barry's disappearance in the future negatively affected Iris and Nora's relationship. It's also incredibly insulting to the friends Cisco has now - people he loves and cares for and considers family - to have the writers make it look like he's going to throw all that away for something he doesn't even have yet. Moreover, its insulting to the character himself.

Hopefully Cisco will choose to keep his powers when he retires, stays in touch with the rest of Team Flash (even if its just implied with mentions every so often), and they'll keep the door open so that he can guest star in the future.

Anyway, with both of those in mind - and some reality subtext coloring Dante's relationship in the first part (I know someone in almost that exact situation) - I decided I wanted to write something that would deconstruct the soulmate genre to at least some degree. Though I may do a bonus soulmate story later that plays the genre straighter. (Like I said above, I do enjoy a good soulmate story.)


End file.
